>But I cannot understand for the life of me how Darwinian evolution would
>select such contrary traits for males and females of the same species.
Whilst I don't even begin to understand the 'one sex' thesis (I've been much lost on this thread of late), I do reckon we've more similar sexes than some species (we ain't much like the Orb Spiders outside my study-shed-window at home. The female is as big as my hand - and an absolute stunner, even as spiders go - and the male weighs in at about 5% of his intended's mass. I don't know a thing about spiders, but amateur observation tells me this nervous little fella has one go at it and then goes quietly into that dark night. Now THAT's natural monogamy! I can only assume the female has a few seasons in her, as it must take a while to get that big - she's certainly there all summer, anyway - and a lass who looked just like her was exactly there last summer - the local moths obviously haven't been able to pass this knowledge on ... )
Random mutation plus non-random cumulative natural selection (Dawkins' one-sentence definition of evolution - which seems just fine to me) seemingly produces all kinds of combinations. As I've had a small e-mail problem (ie. too much mail, partly sparked by poor li'l misunderstood moi), I've not seen all that has hit the list on this general thread. I do think a lot of Lewontin, as it happens (but that shouldn't weigh much as I'm an ignoramus in this area), and notice one Michael Ruse does, too. Has anyone mentioned his *Mystery of Mysteries : Is Evolution a Social Construction*?
The *National Review* (March 8, 1999) sums it up thus: " Which values drive scientific knowledge? 'Scientists' involved in the culture wars say epistemic; 'sociologists' say cultural. Ruse detects a false dilemma...He argues that epistemic values inform all science that survives...[but] the cultural values of important scientists can be seen in the work they choose to do...In Mystery of Mysteries we have a fine presentation of the Highlights of Evolutionary Thought."
Ruse gets quite cross with Gould (I don't pretend to understand why - I like his stuff, too) but really likes Lewontin.
I especially like Lewontin's simple critique of the sociobiologist adaptationists. But am, as ever, left wondering why a selfish gene approach to evolution is so wrong in its basic postulates. Anyway, here's Lewontin (apologies if I'm repeating stuff):
1. Arbitrary agglomeration - There is no way to partition the parts of behavior into separate catagories and talk about the evolution of each part since there is no clear division and there is no evolution of behavior as a whole.
2. Reification - Sociobiologists convieniently forget that evolution occurs only in real objects and cannot occur in the metaphysical world of thoughts. Yet, they constantly try to apply evolution to "mental constructs" (Lewontin, 1979, p 7) such as property and territoriality.
3. Conflation - Frequently, sociobiologists apply terms from human social context to metaphorical behaviors in the animal world. In the process, the terms become associated with the metaphorical animal behavior and when they are reapplied to explain human behavior in society, the terms no longer have the original meaning.
4. Confusion of levels - By its very name sociobiology is meant to deal with the behavior of society, but it often deals with individual behavior. It falsely assumes that societal behavior is simply a collection of individual human behavior.
NONE of this tells me why sexual attraction between humans should not be affected by a predilection for a probably fertile other, nor why selfish gene theory need be so wrong in its basic premise, nor how this is dangerously sexist, nor how it militates against the interests of homosexuals or hermaphrodites, nor how it pushes individualism (Dawkins' latest edition of the offending tome has a whole new chapter in it (ch.2) which speaks of evolution-as-cooperation), nor how it definitively excludes the anthropological or discursive context (with which its postulates could easily be framed in mutually constitutive relationship) - nor anything, really. Sure, it COULD be so deployed, as in gendered societies like the ones in which we live, but, then, as I keep saying, anything can get deployed anyhow anyone likes. Theory is always for something/someone, eh?
And Chip, The Selfish Gene has not been chopped into splinterwood - much less was it so twenty-five years ago.
Anyway, that's me.
Cheers, Rob.